Waterloo Rotary Reporter (Sep 12, 2021)

Rotary Volunteering at Northeast Iowa Foodbank Sep 13

Join us Monday at the Northeast Iowa Foodbank! Feel free to help from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. or stay until 2!

When coming in to volunteer, please come in the MAIN ENTRANCE. The Food Bank is asking all staff, volunteers, and clients to wear masks while in the building regardless of vaccination, per CDC guidelines. Masks will be provided if needed. The projects volunteers will be doing will could be any of the following: sorting food rescue, bagging produce, packing dry boxes or packing backpacks. The Food Bank will provide gloves and hairnets; volunteers are asked to wear closed toed shoes. Due to food safety guidelines, all personal items, such as purses, bags, water bottles, coffee cups, etc. will not be allowed in food sorting areas. They can be kept in the Volunteer Room or large conference room area. The Food Bank will provide bottled water but will not be providing lunch.

Rotary back in Convention Center September 20

Starting September 20, we will start doing lunch at the newly renovated convention center! The convention center wants to know 5 business days before each meeting how many people are anticipated to attend. Please e-mail EJ at edjoe3@gmail.com on whether or not you will be attending. Our club will need to RSVP with the convention center each week so please remember to email EJ every week if you plan to attend the following Monday.

September Birthdays

Look at all the Waterloo Rotarians with birthdays in September! We'll celebrate them on the 20th.

Itzen, Wade - Sep 02

Weidner, Steven A. - Sep 06

Sonnenberg, Kevin - Sep 07

Bunge, John - Sep 09

Lederman, Dave - Sep 12

Vander Werff, Annie - Sep 13

Leonhart, Gene - Sep 14

Burton, Bryan - Sep 15

Richter, Bari - Sep 16

Reints, Casey - Sep 17

Steffens, Larry - Sep 23

Hildebrandt, Nick - Sep 24

Schaefer, Adam - Sep 24

Pullin-Van Auken, Deb - Sep 26

Halverson, Jeff - Sep 28

Rotary International Update

The work Champions of Change Winner Chris Hayter has done to reduce Malaria cases in Bakau by developing and constructing new drainage systems has had a life-changing effect on the community

The Bakau Drainage project has helped reduce the incidence of Malaria in Bakau by constructing, developing and maintaining a drainage system to address poor storm water management.

It was following a holiday to The Gambia in 2006, that Chris developed strong bonds with the West African country. In particular, she connected with the Bakau community, a village on Gambia’s Atlantic coastline to the west of the capital, Banjul.

After seven trips in seven years to The Gambia, it became evident there was a need to improve the education, health and environment of Bakau, and Chris needed to galvanise the community to work towards a solution.

So the seeds were sown for the ‘Oasis Project’, a charity which began in 2007. Chris founded the Starlight School which is responsible for the education of 200 children in Bakau.

You can read to the full story here:

Champions of Change Winner: Chris Hayter - Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland (rotarygbi.org)